DAIL SKETCH/Frank McNally: The Opposition parties have adopted an exciting new strategy this session which involves co-ordinating their inquiries to force maximum disclosure from the Taoiseach.
The tactic works on the same principle as the three-blade razor.
First Enda Kenny asks a question, extracting a snippet of information while also gently extending the Taoiseach's information follicles. Then, before the follicles can retreat, Pat Rabbitte comes along and snips another bit off. Finally, Trevor Sargent or one of the rotating blades from the gang of 22 takes a third swipe.
And before he knows what's hit him, the Taoiseach has had the world's closest shave.
That's the theory, anyway. The technology might need some refinement to judge by yesterday, when it was having difficulty negotiating the contours of the Ceann Comhairle and standing orders.
The Opposition's chosen subject for attack was decentralisation. In keeping with the rules of Taoiseach's Questions, they had to ask about decentralisation plans for Mr Ahern's own Department (there aren't any). But this was merely the lathering-up process, to be followed by a triple-blade assault on what Pat Rabbitte alleged was a Government "rethink" on the scheme forced by civil service resistance.
Unfortunately, the Labour leader's cutting edge was blunted by the dense undergrowth of Dáil precedent, as cited by the Chair, against which he ended up railing: "We can't go on for the next three years with you ruling like this."
Then it was Enda Kenny's turn. And slicker than a lubricating strip, the Fine Gael leader attempted to evade standing orders by citing the case of Cavan, half of the Ceann Comhairle's constituency. Some 84 per cent of the Department of the Marine did not want to go there, claimed Mr Kenny.
But the only effect of this claim was to provoke Cavan's solitary TD, Brendan Smith, to join Mr Ahern on the otherwise deserted Government benches, from which he launched a heckling defence of his county as the choice for any "discerning" marine official.
Meanwhile, across the Chamber, Trevor Sargent mounted a final assault on Mr Ahern's chin, citing senior civil servants' fears that the Departments of the Taoiseach and Finance would be the real beneficiaries of decentralisation, because of the problems the scheme would cause elsewhere.
Like a reported majority of civil servants, however, the Opposition's questions were going nowhere. Apart from his insistence that there was "no rethink", the only information forced out of Mr Ahern concerned his own Department. There were 36 people there seeking transfers, and if they had the opportunity "they'd be gone on Friday".
Mr Ahern must have wondered if this Opposition really was the best a man could get.